Ohio Proposal Unconstitutional

July 25, 2014

Many Ohioans agree Obamacare is an expensive social-engineering fiasco. So how do liberals in the General Assembly react?

By trying to restore at the state level a part of the law declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. In doing so, they would force some Buckeye State business owners to disobey the rules of their churches and their own deeply held ethical beliefs.

In what has become known as the Hobby Lobby ruling, the Supreme Court earlier this summer rejected part of Obamacare involving contraceptives. At issue are treatments some people consider to be abortifacients - that is, drugs that do not prevent pregnancy but instead abort newly created fetuses.

Obamacare requires most companies to provide employees with health insurance including coverage for a variety of contraceptives, including those some consider to be abortifacients. Some business owners, including the family that owns Hobby Lobby stores, objected on religious grounds. The Supreme Court upheld them.

A few liberals in the Ohio House of Representatives want to use state law to force employers to do what the Supreme Court has said is unconstitutional.

Their proposal, the "Not My Boss' Business Act," would force businesses to provide insurance coverage for all 28 contraceptives approved by the Food and Drug Administration. That includes some in the abortifacients category.

Of course, a person's choice of contraceptives isn't anyone else's business. But Obamacare still requires insurance that provides a variety of safe, effective contraceptive methods - at least 16 of them. If one of them is not acceptable for some reason, anyone in Ohio is free to use some other method.

As so often is the case with liberal proposals, the Ohio lawmakers make use of a straw man to arouse indignation. Their bill also would prohibit employers from firing people because they have had abortions or because of their choice of contraceptives.

When was the last time you heard of that happening? Ever? Probably not.

Ohio legislators who favor the bill ignore both the facts of the situation and Constitutional guarantees of freedom of religion. Their plan should be rejected out of hand by more-thoughtful lawmakers.